The ladder to orbit: a goal that explains every chain

A colony sim without a goal is a sandbox, and a goal without a reason for the economy is a checklist. The orbital programme is how From Ashes to Orbit ties the two together: every late-game chain exists because the rocket needs its output.

Five stages, filled over time

The programme has five stages: the launch cradle, the core stage, boosters, the crew vehicle and the propellant load. Each stage lists the material it needs and keeps a matching record of what has been delivered. That is what lets material accumulate over many hauls instead of demanding one enormous pile at once.

A delivery sweeps colony storage and the crew’s pockets, and an auto-deliver option does it on a timer. The rocket on the pad grows one section per completed stage, from the bottom up.

Built backwards from the rocket

The late economy exists to feed those stages.

• Glass: from silica flats, which only an extractor can reach, smelted at the workshop.
• Steel: hardwood becomes charcoal by hand, then steel plate at the workshop.
• Titanium: mined from a seam and refined at the refinery.
• Propellant: flora and water become rocket fuel and liquid oxygen at the refinery.
• Flight hardware: avionics and engines from the armory.

Gating with research

Progression is an experience curve, with the cost to level rising as 60 times the level to the power of 1.35. Each level grants a skill point and some research points. The research tree has 27 nodes and ends at the Orbital Programme itself, which needs both Propulsion and Cryogenics.

Anything locked says why: the build card shows which research it needs and dims its icon, and the crafting button reads LOCKED. Refusals that name the missing piece teach the tree without a manual.

The launch

The launch holds for 2.2 seconds, lights the exhaust and climbs 320 metres over seven seconds. It runs on unscaled time so that a paused game still plays it, then raises the victory screen.

The whole programme is roughly 370 units of late-tier material. It was deliberately designed to be the longest goal in the game: long, but never a grind, because each stage gives the player something visible to point at.

The story has since changed. The rocket is now a rescue, three flights to bring the sleeping crew down, but the structure here, a staged goal that explains the economy, carried over unchanged.